Tag Archives: Brenda

For those who missed it, there is an election happening in Houston right now. Four City Council races wound up in run-offs after the November 8 municipal elections and Houstonians have until December 10 to decide the fate of these crucial races. So far fewer than 2,000 people have voted. Without a “big ticket” item like the mayor’s race at the top of the ballot turnout in the runoff is expected to be very low. The upshot of which is that every ballot cast carries more weight than ever.

Two of the races are at-large seats, so every citizen of Houston gets to vote on this races:

In At-large position 5 incumbent council member Jolanda Jones faces Jack Christie, former State Board of Education member .

Two of the races are for district seats, so only people who live in those districts get to vote on these races:

In District A incumbent council member Brenda Stardig faces republican activist Helena Brown.

In District B local restauranteur and education advocate Jerry Davis faces Alvin Byrd, current staffer for council member Jarvis Johnson.

Early voting continues through December 6th, election day is November 8. Voters may cast their ballot at any early voting location. Visit harrisvotes.org to find your election day polling location (it may be different than your November polling place) and to view a sample ballot.

As I noted here earlier, Ugandan lesbian Brenda Namigadde — who fled to the U.K. in 2002 to escape persecution in her home country where homosexuality is outlawed with those who break that law subject to up to 14 years in prison — was scheduled to be sent back to Uganda at 9 p.m. tonight (London time). But word now is that a High Court judge has granted a temporary injunction preventing her deportation, according to reports by BBC.

Namigadde’s earlier pleas for asylum in the U.K. had been denied after a judge said there was no evidence she is a lesbian.

Efforts to halt Namigadde’s deportation took on added urgency on Wednesdays after news broke of the murder of Uganda’s most prominent gay rights activist, David Kato.

Daniel Garcia, the Mexican teen who arrived in Canada three years ago with his lesbian sister to escape anti-gay torment, was today deported back to Mexico, following his sister Brenda's removal on Monday. The Garcias arrived in 2007 and filed for refugee status, saying Brenda, now 30, had been attacked for being a lesbian and her partner shot to death; having filed an emergency request for a stay of his deportation, Daniel says his mother has already received threats that he too would be targeted, even killed, if he returned home. Daniel, now 18, has been held in a detention center since last week after he was arrested for supposedly not filing a change of address notice with immigration officials, and failing to appear at a hearing. With immigration officials believing neither Daniel or Brenda faced real danger, today she put him on a plane back to Mexico City.